Jaki Noronha-Hostler

Jaki Noronha-Hostler is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), affiliated with The Grainger College of Engineering. Her research focuses on understanding the QCD phase diagram, particularly the properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) formed in relativistic heavy-ion collisions, and connections to neutron star physics. She holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics from Goethe University Frankfurt (2010) and has held positions at institutions including Rutgers University and Columbia University.

Education: PhD in Theoretical Physics (2010, Goethe University Frankfurt); BA in Physics and Mathematics (2004, Berea College). Key honors include the DOE Early Career Award (2018) and Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (2018). She leads the MUSES collaboration (Modular Unified Solver of the Equation of State), a $4.4M NSF-funded project.

Research interests span: relativistic hydrodynamics modeling, lattice QCD, jet energy loss, neutron star structure, and the interplay between heavy-ion collisions and multi-messenger astrophysics. Her group develops computational tools like v-USPhydro (event-by-event SPH hydrodynamics) and ICCING (initial charge generator).

Professional roles include membership on the APS Division of Nuclear Physics Executive Committee and RHIC & AGS User’s Executive Committee. She advises a diverse group of graduate students and postdocs, emphasizing both theoretical advancements and software development in extreme matter physics.

Her work bridges high-energy nuclear physics with astrophysics, leveraging experimental data from RHIC, LHC, and gravitational wave observations to constrain QCD matter properties under extreme conditions.